Editing Robert Louis Stevenson (section)

==Early writing and travels==
===Literary and artistic connections===
[[File:Stevenson at Barbizon in 1876.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Stevenson at age 26 in 1876 at [[Barbizon]], France]]
[[File:Robert Louis Stevenson at 26.jpg|thumb|upright|Stevenson at age 26 by [[Charles Wirgman]]]]
In late 1873, when he was 23, Stevenson was visiting a cousin in England when he met two people who became very important to him: Fanny (Frances Jane) Sitwell and [[Sidney Colvin]]. Sitwell was a 34-year-old woman with a son, who was separated from her husband. She attracted the devotion of many who met her, including Colvin, who married her in 1901. Stevenson was also drawn to her, and they kept up a warm correspondence over several years in which he wavered between the role of a suitor and a son (he addressed her as "[[Mary, mother of Jesus|Madonna]]").<ref>Furnas (1952), 81–2; 85–9; Mehew (2004)</ref> Colvin became Stevenson's literary adviser and was the first editor of his letters after his death. He placed Stevenson's first paid contribution in ''[[The Portfolio]]'', an essay titled "Roads".<ref>Furnas (1952), 84–5</ref>

Stevenson was soon active in London literary life, becoming acquainted with many of the writers of the time, including [[Andrew Lang]], [[Edmund Gosse]]<ref>Furnas (1952), 95; 101</ref> and [[Leslie Stephen]], the editor of ''[[The Cornhill Magazine]]'', who took an interest in Stevenson's work. Stephen took Stevenson to visit a patient at the [[Edinburgh Infirmary]] named [[William Ernest Henley]], an energetic and talkative poet with a wooden leg. Henley became a close friend and occasional literary collaborator, until a quarrel broke up the friendship in 1888, and he is often considered to be the inspiration for [[Long John Silver]] in ''Treasure Island''.<ref>Balfour (1901) I, 123-4; Furnas (1952) 105–6; Mehew (2004)</ref>

Stevenson was sent to [[Menton]] on the [[French Riviera]] in November 1873 to recuperate after his health failed. He returned in better health in April 1874 and settled down to his studies, but he returned to France several times after that.<ref>Furnas (1952), 89–95</ref> He made long and frequent trips to the neighbourhood of the [[Forest of Fontainebleau]], staying at [[Barbizon]], [[Grez-sur-Loing]] and [[Nemours]] and becoming a member of the artists' colonies there. He also travelled to Paris to visit galleries and the theatres.<ref>Balfour (1901) I, 128–37</ref> He qualified for the Scottish bar in July 1875, aged 24, and his father added a brass plate to the Heriot Row house reading "R.L. Stevenson, Advocate". His law studies did influence his books, but he never practised law;<ref>Furnas (1952), 100–1</ref> all his energies were spent in travel and writing. One of his journeys was a canoe voyage in Belgium and France with Sir Walter Simpson, a friend from the Speculative Society, a frequent travel companion, and the author of ''The Art of Golf'' (1887). This trip was the basis of his first travel book ''[[An Inland Voyage]]'' (1878).<ref>Balfour (1901) I, 127</ref>

Stevenson had a long correspondence with fellow Scot [[J.M. Barrie]]. He invited Barrie to visit him in [[Samoa]], but the two never met.<ref>Shaw, Michael (ed.) (2020), ''A Friendship in Letters: Robert Louis Stevenson & J.M. Barrie'', Sandstone Press, Inverness {{ISBN|978-1-913207-02-1}}</ref>

===Marriage===
[[File:Fanny Osbourne 1.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne, c. 1876]]

The canoe voyage with Simpson brought Stevenson to [[Grez-sur-Loing]] in September 1876, where he met [[Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne]] (1840–1914), born in [[Indianapolis]]. She had married at age 17 and moved to [[Nevada]] to rejoin husband Samuel after his participation in the [[American Civil War]]. Their children were [[Isobel Osbourne|Isobel]] (or "Belle"), [[Lloyd Osbourne|Lloyd]] and Hervey (who died in 1875). But anger over her husband's infidelities led to a number of separations. In 1875, she had taken her children to France where she and Isobel studied art.<ref>Furnas (1952), 122–9; Mehew (2004)</ref> By the time Stevenson met her, Fanny was herself a magazine short-story writer of recognised ability.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Van de Grift Sanchez |first=Nellie |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24332?msg=welcome_stranger |title=The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson |date=1920 |publisher=C. Scribner's Sons |location=New York |access-date=25 October 2020 |archive-date=13 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181113210833/http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24332?msg=welcome_stranger |url-status=live }}</ref>

Stevenson returned to Britain shortly after this first meeting, but Fanny apparently remained in his thoughts, and he wrote the essay "On falling in love" for ''The Cornhill Magazine''.<ref>Balfour (1901) I, 145–6; Mehew (2004)</ref> They met again early in 1877 and became lovers. Stevenson spent much of the following year with her and her children in France.<ref>Furnas (1952), 130–6; Mehew (2004)</ref> In August 1878, she returned to San Francisco and Stevenson remained in Europe, making the walking trip that formed the basis for ''[[Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes]]'' (1879). But he set off to join her in August 1879, aged 28, against the advice of his friends and without notifying his parents. He took a second-class passage on the steamship ''[[Scillonian (1955)|Devonia]]'', in part to save money but also to learn how others travelled and to increase the adventure of the journey.<ref>Balfour (1901) I, 164–5; Furnas (1952), 142–6; Mehew (2004)</ref> He then travelled overland by train from New York City to California. He later wrote about the experience in ''[[The Amateur Emigrant]]''. It was a good experience for his writing, but it broke his health.
[[File:Robert Louis Stevenson House, 530 Houston Street, Monterey (Monterey County, California).jpg|thumb|French Hotel (now "[[Robert Louis Stevenson House|Stevenson House]]"), [[Monterey, California]], where he stayed in 1879]]
[[File:Robert Louis Stevenson and family.jpg|thumb|right|Family in 1893: Wife [[Fanny Stevenson|Fanny]], Stevenson, his stepdaughter [[Isobel Osbourne|Isobel]], and his mother Margaret Balfour]]
He was near death when he arrived in [[Monterey, California]], where some local ranchers nursed him back to health. He stayed for a time at the French Hotel located at 530 Houston Street, now a museum dedicated to his memory called the "[[Monterey State Historic Park#Stevenson House|Stevenson House]]". While there, he often dined "on the cuff," as he said, at a nearby restaurant run by Frenchman Jules Simoneau, which stood at what is now Simoneau Plaza; several years later, he sent Simoneau an inscribed copy of his novel ''[[Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde]]'' (1886), writing that it would be a stranger case still if Robert Louis Stevenson ever forgot Jules Simoneau. While in Monterey, he wrote an evocative article about "the Old Pacific Capital" of Monterey.

By December 1879, aged 29, Stevenson had recovered his health enough to continue to San Francisco where he struggled "all alone on forty-five cents a day, and sometimes less, with quantities of hard work and many heavy thoughts,"<ref>Letter to Sidney Colvin, January 1880, ''The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson'', Volume 1, [[S:The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume 1/Chapter IV|Chapter IV]]</ref> in an effort to support himself through his writing. But by the end of the winter, his health was broken again and he found himself at death's door. Fanny was now divorced and recovered from her own illness, and she came to his bedside and nursed him to recovery. "After a while," he wrote, "my spirit got up again in a divine frenzy, and has since kicked and spurred my vile body forward with great emphasis and success."<ref>"To Edmund Gosse, Monterey, Monterey Co., California, 8 October 1879," ''The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson'', Volume 1, [[S:The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume 1/Chapter IV|Chapter IV]]</ref> When his father heard of his 28-year-old son's condition, he cabled him money to help him through this period.

Fanny and Robert were married in May 1880. She was 40; he was 29. He said that he was "a mere complication of cough and bones, much fitter for an emblem of mortality than a bridegroom."<ref>"To P. G. Hamerton, Kinnaird Cottage, Pitlochry [July 1881]," ''The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson'', Volume 1, [[S:The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume 1/Chapter V|Chapter V]]</ref> He travelled with his new wife and her son Lloyd<ref>Isobel was married to artist Joseph Strong.</ref> north of San Francisco to [[Napa County, California|Napa Valley]] and spent a summer honeymoon at an abandoned mining camp on [[Mount Saint Helena]] (today designated [[Robert Louis Stevenson State Park]]). He wrote about this experience in ''[[The Silverado Squatters]]''. He met [[Charles Warren Stoddard]], co-editor of the ''[[Overland Monthly]]'' and author of ''South Sea Idylls'', who urged Stevenson to travel to the South Pacific, an idea which returned to him many years later. In August 1880, he sailed with Fanny and Lloyd from New York to Britain and found his parents and his friend [[Sidney Colvin]] on the wharf at [[Liverpool]], happy to see him return home. Gradually, his wife was able to patch up differences between father and son and make herself a part of the family through her charm and wit.

===England, and back to the United States===
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| caption1          = Stevenson's house Skerryvore in the southern English coastal town of [[Bournemouth]] where he wrote the bulk of his most popular work
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The Stevensons shuttled back and forth between Scotland and the Continent (twice wintering in [[Davos]])<ref>{{Cite web |title=Switzerland {{!}} Robert Louis Stevenson |url=https://robert-louis-stevenson.org/switzerland/#:~:text=The%20Stevenson%20family%20(RLS,%20his,found%20it%20stifling%20and%20depressing. |access-date=9 February 2025 |language=en-GB}}</ref> before finally, in 1884, settling in [[Westbourne, Dorset|Westbourne]] in the English south-coast town of [[Bournemouth]]. Stevenson had moved there to benefit from its sea air.<ref>{{cite book | last=Hainsworth | first=J. J. | title=Jack the Ripper—Case Solved, 1891 | location=Jefferson, NC | publisher=McFarland | year=2015 | isbn=978-0-7864-9676-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZhDNCgAAQBAJ | access-date=15 June 2023 | page=141}}</ref> They lived in a house Stevenson named 'Skerryvore' after a Scottish lighthouse built by his uncle Alan.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bournemouth {{!}} Robert Louis Stevenson |url=http://robert-louis-stevenson.org/bournemouth/ |access-date=29 January 2021 |website=robert-louis-stevenson.org |archive-date=23 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123180039/http://robert-louis-stevenson.org/bournemouth/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

From April 1885, 34-year-old Stevenson had the company of the novelist [[Henry James]]. They had met previously in London and had recently exchanged views in journal articles on the "art of fiction" and thereafter in a correspondence in which they expressed their admiration for each other's work. After James had moved to Bournemouth to help support his invalid sister, [[Alice James|Alice]], he took up the invitation to pay daily visits to Skerryvore for conversation at the Stevensons' dinner table.<ref name="O">{{Cite journal |last=O'Hagan |first=Andrew |date=2020 |title=Bournemouth |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n10/andrew-o-hagan/bournemouth |journal=The London Review of Books |volume=42 |issue=10 |issn=0260-9592 |access-date=4 November 2020 |archive-date=1 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101051455/https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n10/andrew-o-hagan/bournemouth |url-status=live }}</ref>

Largely bedridden, Stevenson described himself as living "like a weevil in a biscuit." Yet, despite ill health, during his three years in Westbourne, Stevenson wrote the bulk of his most popular work: ''[[Treasure Island]]'', ''[[Kidnapped (novel)|Kidnapped]]'', ''[[Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde]]'' (which established his wider reputation), ''[[A Child's Garden of Verses]]'' and ''[[Underwoods]]''.

[[File:StevensonAdirondackHome.JPG|thumb|Stevenson's "[[Cure Cottages of Saranac Lake|Cure Cottage]]" in [[Saranac Lake, New York]]]]
Thomas Stevenson died in 1887 leaving his 36-year-old son feeling free to follow the advice of his physician to try a complete change of climate. Stevenson headed for Colorado with his widowed mother and family. But after landing in New York, they decided to spend the winter in the [[Adirondacks]] at a cure cottage now known as [[Stevenson Cottage]] at [[Saranac Lake, New York]]. During the intensely cold winter, Stevenson wrote some of his best essays, including ''Pulvis et Umbra''. He also began ''[[The Master of Ballantrae]]'' and lightheartedly planned a cruise to the southern Pacific Ocean for the following summer.<ref>"To W.E. Henley, Pitlochry, if you please, [August] 1881," ''The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson'', Volume 1, [[S:The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume 1/Chapter V|Chapter V]]</ref>
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